peak-time-call-triage

---
name: peak-time-call-triage
description: Builds the order in which a rushed member of staff handles what the phone is actually being asked during the busiest part of service, so an allergen question never gets the same ten-second brush-off as someone asking for the venue's opening hours. It works out which categories of call carry a legal duty to answer properly even under pressure, and checks that the one question with real consequences if it is rushed, a food allergy, is never the one trimmed to save time. Use before your busiest sitting of the week, and before you write a "how to answer the phone" note for new staff.
---

# Answering the phone correctly when it will not stop ringing

You give this the kinds of call your line gets during a rush: bookings, allergy or dietary questions, general enquiries, complaints, suppliers, and anything else. You get back the order to handle them in when more than one is waiting, a one-line rule for the question that must never be rushed, and a script line for putting a call on a brief, honest hold rather than answering it badly. It will not tell you to treat an allergy question the same as a question about parking.

## What it does

1. **Separate the calls that carry a legal duty to answer properly from the calls that are just urgent to the caller.** A caller asking whether a dish contains a particular allergen is asking a question the business has to answer correctly regardless of how busy the line is; a caller asking about opening hours is asking something that matters to them but carries no equivalent legal weight if the answer is slightly wrong or delayed. A caller who needs longer to communicate, or who is using a relay service, is in the same first category: section 20(3) of the Equality Act 2010 requires a venue to "take such steps as it is reasonable to have to take to avoid the disadvantage" a disabled caller faces, and a rushed line that hangs up on a slower call is creating exactly that disadvantage, not a neutral casualty of being busy. Triage during a rush means recognising which call this actually is within the first few seconds, not treating every ringing line the same.

2. **Know that a phone order or enquiry about allergens is covered by the same duty as a counter order.** Government guidance states that before a customer buys food, a business must tell them about allergens "either in writing on a website or menu, or by phone," and that for a takeaway or similar order, written information should also be given "when the food is delivered." A rushed "I think it's fine" to an allergen question, given because the queue of other calls is backing up, is not the business meeting that duty; it is the business guessing under pressure about something it is required to actually know.

3. **Put a genuine hold in place rather than a rushed, wrong answer.** Where an allergen question arrives while three other lines are ringing, the correct move is a short, honest hold, "let me just check that for you," not an immediate answer given from memory to clear the queue. A ten-second pause that gets the answer right costs the business far less than a wrong answer that reaches a customer with a genuine allergy.

4. **Order the rest of the queue by what actually breaks if it waits.** A booking enquiry waits better than an allergy question, because nothing about a correct booking depends on speed in the same way; a supplier call can wait longer still, since nothing time-critical is usually at stake for the caller. Writing this order down before the rush starts means a new or junior staff member is not making this judgement alone in the moment for the first time.

5. **Give every caller on hold the same honest signal, whatever they are asking about.** A caller who is told "I'll be right with you" and then hears nothing for ninety seconds has been treated worse than a caller who is told at the outset that the venue is mid-service and asked whether they would rather be called back. The second answer is often the right one at the busiest moment of the week, provided the call-back time stated is one the venue will actually keep.

6. **Review which calls actually arrived during the last rush, and adjust the triage order from what happened, not from what staff assumed happened.** A triage order built once and never checked against what the phone actually receives during a Friday evening rush will not match the real mix of calls for very long.

## Then it checks

1. The triage order is written down, with allergen and dietary questions placed above general enquiries, not level with them.
2. A hold script exists for an allergen question that cannot be answered immediately, and it states a genuine intention to check rather than giving a guessed answer.
3. No written guidance tells staff to answer an allergen question from memory under time pressure rather than checking.
4. A call-back offer exists for busy periods, with a stated time that matches what the venue actually delivers.
5. The order for the rest of the queue (bookings, general enquiries, suppliers) is written down rather than left to individual judgement under pressure.
6. The triage order has been checked against an actual recent rush period, not assumed correct from when it was first written.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never write guidance that tells staff to answer an allergen question from memory, under any level of time pressure; a genuine hold to check is always the correct instruction.
- Never state a specific industry figure for call volume, abandonment or staffing ratios during peak service as fact; no independently verified UK hospitality-specific figure was found for this during research, so none is used.
- Never offer a call-back time in the script that the venue does not actually, reliably deliver.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own menu, allergen records and staffing, and for their environmental health officer or food safety adviser to check where an allergen process is in doubt. It applies published food safety guidance to a draft triage order; it is not legal advice and it is not confirmation that a given triage process complies.

## Built from
- Food Standards Agency guidance via GOV.UK, "Food allergies", https://www.gov.uk/food-allergies, read 4 November 2026: the duty to give allergen information by phone and at delivery, behind steps 2 and 3.
- Equality Act 2010, section 20, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/20/enacted, read 4 November 2026: the duty not to let an accessibility need be the one dropped under pressure, which this skill's triage order treats as sitting alongside the allergen duty rather than below general enquiries.

# peak-time-call-triage

## You are given
The categories of call the line typically receives (booking, allergen or dietary question, general enquiry, complaint, supplier, accessibility or relay call, other), with the triage priority the owner wants for each. The hold script wording for an allergen question that cannot be answered immediately. The call-back offer wording for busy periods, and the time stated in it. A log of calls received during a recent, named peak period, categorised by the categories above, if available. Any written staff guidance currently in use for answering the phone during a rush.

## Produce
Write into a `./peak-time-call-triage-output/` folder:

1. `triage-order.csv` with columns: `category`, `priority_rank`, `legal_duty_category`. `priority_rank` is 1 upward as supplied. `legal_duty_category` is `yes` for `allergen or dietary question` and `accessibility or relay call`, `no` otherwise, and any row where one of those two categories is not ranked in the top two is flagged in `gaps.md`.
2. `hold-script-check.csv` with columns: `script_text_verbatim`, `states_intention_to_check`, `contains_guessed_answer_language`. The second and third columns are `yes`/`no`, found by checking the text for phrases that commit to checking (`let me check`, `I'll confirm`, `one moment`) versus phrases that answer without checking (`should be fine`, `I think`, `probably`).
3. `callback-offer-check.csv` with columns: `stated_callback_time`, `actual_typical_callback_time`, `match`. `match` is `yes` only where the two times are consistent as supplied; any `no` is flagged first in `gaps.md`.
4. `peak-period-comparison.csv`, completed only where a recent call log by category is supplied, with columns: `category`, `calls_received`, `percent_of_total`, `triage_rank_assigned`. One row per category, with percentages calculated to one decimal place.
5. `staff-guidance-audit.csv` with columns: `guidance_text_verbatim`, `instructs_guessing_on_allergens`. `yes` where the supplied guidance tells staff to answer an allergen question from memory under time pressure rather than checking; any `yes` is listed first in `gaps.md`.
6. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: any legal-duty category not ranked in the top two of the triage order; a hold script with no stated intention to check; a mismatched call-back time; any staff guidance instructing guessing on allergens; and any category appearing in `peak-period-comparison.csv` with no corresponding row in `triage-order.csv`.

## Rules
- Codex counts, checks and records. It never writes the hold script or staff guidance itself, never invents a call volume figure, and never states an industry benchmark for peak call handling since none independently verified for UK hospitality was used in building this skill.
- Every percentage is calculated from the supplied counts, never estimated.
- Phrase searches for checking versus guessing language are literal and case insensitive, with every hit quoted.
- Never connect to a phone system and never answer, hold or route an actual call.
- Use British English, GBP and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write; flag rather than correct one in supplied text.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own menu, allergen records and staffing, and for their environmental health officer or food safety adviser to check where an allergen process is in doubt. It applies supplied rules to a draft triage order and is not confirmation that a given triage process complies.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written and the row count of each CSV. The triage order with each category's legal duty flag. The hold script check result. The call-back time match result. The peak period comparison, where supplied, with the two biggest mismatches between call volume and triage rank. The staff guidance audit result. The `gaps.md` item count in full.